RAZZLE DAZZLE

by Lisa Hendrix

“He certainly pounced when I brought up the Craft.” Tish sighed. “This whole thing is just too confounding. Let’s have some tea.”

  Without waiting for a response from Miranda, she crossed to the corner where an electric teakettle steamed quietly on a cart. She selected a small, silver container from among the half dozen on the tray, measured out a generous portion of Keemun tea into her favorite Spode teapot, and poured the hot water over the leaves.

  “Small rituals are so calming,” she said, half to herself, as she slipped the cozy over the pot. “I think that’s part of what attracts me to the Craft—the ritual.”

  “Mmm,” said Miranda, lost in thought.

  Tish knew Miranda was being flip when she’d raised the specter of Mason being sexually involved with Raine Hobart, but now that she thought about it, it concerned Tish. Talk about disaster three times over—if their love potion led Mason to Raine’s bed, disaster wouldn’t be the word for it.

  The tea brewing, Tish went to her dressing table and took the pins out of her hair. Brushing out her hair every evening was one of her small rituals, too, and the familiar motion soothed her as it always did. By the time she was done, the tea had finished steeping. She poured two cups and carried them to the window to join her daughter.

  As Tish sipped her tea, Miranda simply stared at the reflections bouncing off the brown liquid.

  “Saltpeter,” she said aloud.

  Tish nearly dropped her cup. “Absolutely not. I forbid it.”

  “I don’t mean saltpeter literally,” said Miranda, “although the idea has a certain appeal, considering some of the stunts Mason has pulled on me in the past. However, I bet Raven knows an herb or something that would take the spunk out of him.”

  “No,” repeated Tish.

  “We need to buy ourselves some time.”

  “Not by readjusting Mason’s sex drive.”

  Miranda eyeballed her mother over the top edge of the cup as she took a sip of tea. “Haven’t we already done that?”

  “We have affected his heart, his emotions. Not his libido. And may I point out that we haven’t done a very good job of that.” Tish set her cup down on the side table. “Great Lord of the Night, if we ruined Mason’s sex life, he’d never forgive us.”

  “If Caroline finds out he’s bopping the gardener, she’ll ruin his sex life. And then she’ll start taking apart Alexander Industries.”

  “Your language is appalling.”

  “I’m right, though.”

  “Possibly,” Tish admitted. “Caroline does not strike me as the type to forgive and forget. Nonetheless, your brother’s ‘spunk’ will stay as it is, and that’s a direct order from your mother. We will stick to our plan and wait until the dark of the moon, when we can properly reverse the spell.”

  “If the spell really did work, by the dark of the moon Mason may be enrolled in pruning classes.”

  “Then he’ll prune for a few days. He’ll lose interest once we set things right.” Tish reached across and patted Miranda’s bony knee. “Patience, my darling. Patience.”

  *

  After a long day of accountants and engineering reports, Mason was more than ready for that bikini, and the tie-dyed T-shirt Raine wore as a cover-up when she came out of the guest room gave every indication he was going to get his wish, recalling as it did sun-drenched California beaches and volleyball games. As they walked to the elevator that ran from the second floor down to the pool level, he caught an encouraging glimpse of Lycra-clad bottom beneath the hem of the T-shirt. There were definitely times when it was good to be a man.

  “Whoa,” said Raine as the elevator doors opened onto the pool. “I had no clue.”

  Mason knew exactly what she meant. From outside, the pool area looked no bigger than the west terrace that formed its roof, but thanks to the slope of the property, it actually extended back under the house as a sort of subbasement. It made for a deceptively large space. Also, a few years before his father had died, the ceiling had been painted with a trompe l’oeil fantasy of clouds and flying birds. Combined with a greenhouse’s worth of tropical plants and the huge bank of west-facing windows, the effect was of a huge oasis with a mountain view.

  Raine let her fingers wander through the lush foliage, pausing to stroke the waxy leaves of a ti plant. “I bet your mother loves this place. It’s a lot like her.”

  “Strange, but spectacular?”

  Raine chuckled. “Those aren’t quite the words I would have picked, but yes, something like that.” She glanced toward the pool. “Shall we?”

  “Ladies first.”

  She peeled out of the shirt in one smooth move, destroying Mason’s fantasy. Not a bikini, a turquoise tank suit.

  But one with a low-cut back and high-cut legs. And very thin, very clingy material, Mason observed as she walked to the deep end of the pool and took a stance at the edge. It would do.

  She dived cleanly and bobbed to the surface partway across the pool, then rolled into a lazy backstroke. “Are you coming in, or are you just going to stare?”

  “Just sizing up the competition.”

  “I should have known you’d want to race,” she said, sounding slightly perturbed.

  “We don’t have to.”

  “No, no. Let’s get your competitive streak satisfied, and then we can just splash around. Do you mind if I at least warm up a little first?”

  “Of course not.” Mason didn’t bother denying the competitive streak. He tossed his cotton robe on a chair and dove in, coming up where he thought Raine would be. She had vanished, and it took him a moment to spot the flash of turquoise beneath the water. She surfaced at the far length of the pool. Mason swam to join her, and they did a couple of easy laps, matching each other stroke for stroke. She was a strong swimmer, but Mason felt confident. He wasn’t even pushing.

  “I’m ready,” Mason said. “How about you?”

  Raine wore a relaxed smile as she pulled herself up on the edge of the pool. “Diving start, or in the water?”

  “Diving. Two lengths.”

  “Aw, come on. Let’s do it right. Four, just like real swimmers.”

  “All right. Four.” He hoisted himself out of the water and they took positions next to each other on the tiled edge. “On three.”

  Raine settled into her stance. “One … two…” Her thighs tightened. God, she had beautiful legs. Strong legs. And her shoulders… Mason had a sudden feeling he’d made a mistake. “Three.”

  She rocketed out over the water, landing a good five feet beyond him, and it was downhill from there on out. He swam like a barracuda was after him, but even if that had been enough, and it wasn’t, she’d have beat him on the turns alone. By the second lap, she was sailing past him in the opposite direction at about midpool. Sheer stubbornness drove him to finish, but she was sitting on the end of the pool, wearing a smug smile and squeezing water out of the end of her braid, when he wallowed up to the wall.

  He took a gulp of air and raked his hair out of his eyes. “You set me up.”

  “Yes, sir.” Laughter bubbled out of her. “I sure did.”

  The burn in his arms finally subsided enough that he could boost himself out of the pool. He flopped backward on the concrete beside Raine, breathing hard. “Excuse me, Miss Hobart, but I do believe you neglected to mention you swam competitively.”

  She just grinned and shrugged. “How else do you think I could afford McKenna?”

  “Full ride?”

  “No, but enough that I could make ends meet. Or at least get them to wave at each other over a distance. I’m still paying off student loans, though.”

  Mason levered himself up on his elbows. “What other surprises do you have up your sleeve?”

  Laughing, Raine held out her bare arms. “Not so much as a cufflink. I didn’t crush your masculine ego or anything, did I?”

  “No. Miranda got me over that when we were young.” He grinned. “She’s going to be sorry she missed this.”

  “We could always i
nvite her down and do it again,” Raine offered cheerily.

  “I don’t think so.” He pushed up, so he was sitting beside her with a perfect view of her legs dangling into the pool and an adequate view of the top curve of her breasts above her suit. He was just thinking he could probably sit there quite content for the rest of his life when she suddenly slid off the edge.

  Her hands moved in slow, lazy eights as she treaded water at his feet. “Let’s do a few more laps. This space has wonderful, open energy flows. I feel fantastic.”

  Open energy flows? Mason opened his mouth to point out how ridiculous that sounded, but she looked so relaxed, bobbing there in the water like some modern-day mermaid, that he decided it wasn’t worth the argument. He dove in cleanly beside her, and they did a dozen easy laps before climbing out of the pool and heading upstairs to change.

  Dinner was a repeat of the night before, with Miranda grilling an ever more bemused Raine, and Mason running a counteroffensive of blatant seduction to throw his sister off. It had the same result, too, leaving him in that state of pointless excitement to which frustrated young boys refer by a colorful name.

  The enforced proximity of the car and the need to keep up appearances for Paul did nothing to help, and by the time they got to Raine’s door, his best intentions were barely holding on by a thread. As she unlocked the door, he stepped close, so that when she turned she was practically in his arms.

  She licked her lips nervously. “I didn’t see Mrs. Perlmutter. She must have fallen asleep in front of the news.”

  “Good for the news.”

  She came into his arms like she belonged there, face tilted up, a soft smile on her half-open lips. He lowered his head, and suddenly it didn’t matter that none of it was real. It was as though he’d been holding his breath all evening, waiting for this, and her kiss had finally allowed him to fill his lungs with purest oxygen. She groaned softly, and when he raised his head to catch the sound better, he discovered he could see the foot of her bed through the cracked door, beyond the living room. The image of Raine amid those tousled white sheets created a dangerous ripple of arousal down his spine and into his groin. So tempting.

  And such a bad idea.

  It took an effort to grip her arms and set her away, even more effort to step back and find his voice. “I enjoyed our swim tonight. Would you like to do it again tomorrow?”

  “No.” She glanced around in confusion, as though she wasn’t sure where she was, then straightened and pulled herself together. “That is, could we just skip one night?”

  He swept away the feeling of rejection that tried to attach to her words. This wasn’t real, after all.

  “I’d rather not. Mother and Miranda aren’t showing much sign of movement yet. We have less than two weeks now.”

  “I know, but I really need some time to take care of life.” She turned away, staring into the blackness of the alley beyond. “You can go out every night, all night, and your servants keep the home fires burning.”

  “Servants,” he repeated, amused. “We call them staff now.”

  “Well, whatever they are, I don’t have them,” she snapped. “It’s just me, and I haven’t had ten free minutes awake since Sunday. It’s nearly midnight and I have to be at work at seven. There’s a four-day-old pile of clothes on the couch waiting to be folded, I’m running out of stuff for lunch, and my poor cat thinks he’s been abandoned.” She spoke faster and faster, getting more agitated with each word. “We won’t even talk about the dust. It’s either give me a free night or watch me fall asleep in the soup, because I’m going to have to stay up all night just to keep even.”

  “Okay, okay,” Mason held up his hands in surrender. “You have an amazing knack for making a man feel guilty over the circumstances of his birth. I’m sorry. I’ve been so focused on my side of this that I haven’t taken your life into consideration. You can have the night off. Or I have a better idea. I’ll come over here. Being alone will make Mother and Miranda assume the worst, and I can help you catch up on your housework.”

  She eyed him doubtfully. “Somehow, I have trouble picturing you chasing dust bunnies.”

  “It’s like fox hunting, right?”

  She stared for a moment, then broke into a laugh. “All right, all right. You can’t help it if you’re a rich kid. But you’re not exactly the prototype for Mr. Domestic, you know.”

  “You wound me. My apartments have always been as neat as the proverbial pin.” He conveniently omitted mention of the thrice-weekly maid service he always arranged. “However, my thoughts were running more toward cooking you dinner while you wield the mop. I know how to grill a mean pork chop.”

  “I don’t have a grill. Or pork chops.”

  “Broiler?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then we’re set. I’ll take you to the store first. You need to buy bologna and bread anyway, you said.”

  That doubtful look again.

  “I’ll even carry the bags,” he offered.

  She eyed him with skepticism, then sighed. “Oh, all right. How can I resist my own personal millionaire bag boy.”

  “Five-thirty, then.”

  “Six,” she countered. “I at least need time after work to make a list and get my undies off the couch.”

  “Six, then. And now, I’d better let you turn in.” He dropped one last kiss on her cheek. It was all he dared, with the word undies bouncing around in his skull. He stepped off the porch before he used up his daily allotment of chivalry. “Good night, Raine.”

  “Good night.”

  Did she wear cotton or lace? he wondered as he picked his way back through the fantastic shadows of the dark garden. Caroline could take lessons from this girl on how to drive a man to distraction—except on Caro it would be so deliberate. Raine simply said what was on her mind, and let other people take it where they would.

  And tonight, he would take it straight home to a cold shower.

  *

  Raine stood on the porch until the bass rumble of the Rolls Royce engine faded, leaving only the faint drone of Mrs. Perlmutter’s television and the whine of traffic on the Aurora Bridge to disturb the night. Why on earth had she agreed to spend an evening alone with that man, when he could so easily make her forget this whole thing was a sham? Because forget she did, for those few moments every time his mouth was on hers.

  Before she could come up with an answer, the phone rang. Raine hurried inside and answered.

  “Any more progress tonight?”

  “Geez, Zoe, do you have a guard on my house, or what?” Raine dragged the phone back so she could lock the door. “I wasn’t even inside yet.”

  “I don’t need a guard,” said Zoe cheerily. “I’m psychic.”

  “Since when? Let me guess: you must have started a new job at one of those 900 numbers.”

  “Nope. I’m transcribing notes for this physics professor up at the UW. Something about quantum mechanics and how when you do something to a subatomic particle in one place, it affects a particle in another place even though they aren’t in contact. I don’t understand the math at all, but the rest is really cool. Anyway, it must have joggled me or something when you opened the door.”

  “I’m not a subatomic particle,” said Raine. She got out a can of cat food and the can opener.

  “You know what I mean. Anyway, so have you gotten Moneybags to open his mind yet?”

  “No. Although he managed to keep from exploding tonight when I said ‘energy flow,’ so maybe he’s desensitizing.”

  “Ooh. This is going to work, Rainey. I can see it.”

  “Zoe, I love you dearly, but you get flakier every day.” It wasn’t that Raine didn’t believe that a few rare people were psychic—just that Zoe wasn’t one of them.

  “I’m telling you, it’s real. Physics proves it.”

  “Does your vision happen to include when this plan will work? Because at this rate I’ll be lucky to explain ch’i to him before his tenants move into the building.”


  “It won’t take that long,” Zoe said. “You just have to persist. What’s your next window of opportunity?”

  “He’s coming over tomorrow night.” Raine regretted the words the instant they left her mouth.

  “To your place?” Zoe perked up. “Cool. I can just sort of casually show up and we’ll double-team him.”

  “No.”

  “But we could do—”

  “No, Zoe.”

  “But—”

  “Zoe Rachel Levine, I swear, if I see so much as one of your false eyelashes outside my house tomorrow, I’ll shoot you.”

  “Oh, all right.” Her pout was apparent, even by phone. “I promise I won’t come over. But you are going to keep working on him, right?”

  More like he’s working on me, Raine thought. She set the cat food on the porch for Bugsy and relocked the door. “I really ought to tell him who I am. He’s going to figure it out anyway; it’s just a matter of time.”

  “Come on, Rainey. Hang in there for Fremont.”

  “Yeah, right.” Well, if he was coming over, she wouldn’t so much as let him touch her. That’d make it easier to stay rational. And she was going to have to hide her feng shui books in the closet—

  “Rainey?”

  “Sure, Zoe. For Fremont.”

  *

  Miranda relaxed when Mason once more opted to sleep in his own bed, but when she woke early the next morning, she decided that a face-to-face conversation might be in order—just to see where things stood. Toward that end, she decided to join him for breakfast—a sacrifice, considering that anything more than juice before ten A.M. struck her as repulsive. Mason, on the other hand.’ had always been a breakfast eater, and he sat across from Miranda in the octagonal breakfast room making her slightly nauseous with the amount of muesli, cantaloupe, and lean ham he was consuming.

  “Are you going to be needing the car this afternoon?” Miranda asked. Five vehicles sat in the carriage house, but “the car” always meant the one with the driver. “Mother volunteered me for that affair for the hospital. The benefactors’ tea. If I show up driving myself, they may lose hope that we’ll ever donate again.”

  Mason glanced up from the yellow pad on which he was scribbling between bites. “No. Go ahead. In fact, that reminds me—I meant to tell Mother I won’t be here for dinner. I guess I’ll leave a note.” He flipped to a fresh sheet of paper and continued writing.